ABSTRACT
The Catholic Church’s present code of canon law defines bigamy as the transgression of a legally established matrimony between a man and a woman, which occurs when one of them joins another person or persons in marriage while their spouse is still alive.1 Archbishop Pedro Moya de Contreras (1573-91)2 established the “Tribunal de la Fe” (Tribunal of the Faith) in Mexico to try all cases of heresy and clandestine marriages as the first inquisitor and visitador apostólico (1584-85)—except in cases of indigenous people, who made up about eighty percent of the population and were tried by the ordinary ecclesiastical courts of each region-in a vast territory that included New Spain, New Galicia, New Mexico, and the Philippines.3
